Tea party organizer tries to draw black community

ZEELAND -- Jim Chiodo hoped to get the African-American community out to hear black minister and conservative Rev. Levon Yuille speak to the Holland-Zeeland Patriots Tea Party on Tuesday.

It didn't happen.

Yuille and an aide were the only African-Americans among the 160 people attending the meeting at the Herman Miller Community Center.

"I tried to reach out to the black community, making calls to churches in Muskegon and Grand Rapids. Those pastors just weren't interested in hearing a black person -- a minister -- with a conservative Republican message," said Chiodo, an organizer for the group.

Jim Chiodo

Yuille sees African-Americans ministers as the reason that black voters support Democrats more than 3 to 1 in federal elections, claiming those ministers tell their congregations to vote for Democrats.

"They have poisoned the water of our reality (in the Black community) with their dying devotion to Democrats bordering on idolatry," Yuille said.

"Black churches have corrupted the history of who freed the slaves. Most black people think it was Democrats, but it was Republicans," said Yuille, who is pastor of The Bible Church in Ypsilanti and host of the radio talk show Joshua's trail on WDTK-AM radio in Detroit.

"We don't politicize our congregations at all. Black people are individuals and listen to election speeches and read the news like anyone else to form their opinions," said Holmes, who did not attend the meeting.

"If Democrats meet our needs or align with our thinking, they get our vote," said Holmes a former registered Republican who has become a moderate independent in the past few years.

Yuille also spoke out against the NAACP, which he believes doesn't represent African-Americans people but promotes the Democratic Party.